


I’ve Lost Myself Trying to Find You

by HereToWrite



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Daniel deals with the fallout of loosing his wife to the Goa’uld, Depression, Gen, Has references to the movie; Need; Fire and Water; and more, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Sam and Teal’c are also here but only briefly, references to episodes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27124217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HereToWrite/pseuds/HereToWrite
Summary: “No, Daniel,” Jack says and Daniel catches it this time. “You have to tell me what’s wrong.”There’s so many things he could say to that. Things like, I think I'm losing myself, or does killing make me a bad person, or I can’t fall asleep for more than a few hours at a time because I still haven’t gotten used to sleeping alone, but none of that seems like enough. None of that seems to even begin to give form to his grief.“Daniel,” and that tone forces him to answer.“She’s gone,” he decides to go with the root of it all.Or Daniel isn’t dealing with loosing Sha’re as well as people thought
Relationships: Daniel Jackson & Jack O’Neill, Daniel Jackson/Sha’re
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	I’ve Lost Myself Trying to Find You

Daniel is a lot of things. He’s an archeologist, but more than that he’s a laughingstock, a fool, and a dreamer. The names weigh him down and pull him apart, until Catherine shows up. She shows up with secrets and tells Daniel that he is a lot of things: the biggest of which is validated. Validated and free and  _ worth something _ . 

Then he strands everyone on his team on a desert world light years from home and he is nothing. 

—

The others they’re soldiers and Daniel knows he doesn’t belong. He wasn’t built to fight men, much less gods, he was built to discover them. He was built to bring cultures back from the long dead past, not destroy them. 

Maybe that’s why it hurts so much when he’s forced to. When he stands and is useless and dies because of it. 

Dying, he decides, hurts. But coming back and realizing that he’s failed is far worse. 

—

Sha’re dies in his arms and Daniel’s vision tunnels. He can bring her back. Does bring her back. And she’s beautiful and lovely and he thinks this might be love. She smiles at him and maybe whatever this is started off wrong, but perhaps it could be right. 

The Stargate turns to home and Daniel comes to a decision. 

The others leave. He stays.

—

For just over a year life is everything he’s ever dreamed it would be. No, that’s not right, it’s more than that. In the past he’s never dreamed of Sha’re, nor of calling another planet home. Perhaps he’s loved in the past, but he’s never dared to dream of having someone love him back. For once in his life reality is better than fiction and he rides the euphoria of it. He smiles and laughs and feels perfectly at home in the desert sand. 

During the day he explores. He visits the locals and stumbles through their language and makes a fool of himself, but at night? At night he lies next to Sha’re’s body and thinks that this must be what paradise feels like. 

—

They come back. Specifically, Jack comes back. He comes back and Daniel should've known that it would bring nothing but trouble. He should’ve understood that Jack wouldn’t be here otherwise, but he had been stupid. Stupid and reckless and naive and he wasn’t even the one who paid for his mistakes. 

He closes his eyes and Sha’re’s face stares back at him. Only her eyes are distant and her lips sneer at him. Sha’re is gone, a prisoner of Amaunet, and Daniel  _ left her there.  _

Now, alone in a mountain he never wanted to return to, he fights the urge to scream as he clutches at his hair and tries to breathe. 

“You doing okay in here?” A voice asks and he jumps, looking up to see Jack standing in the doorway. He huffs a bitter laugh, he hadn’t realized the older man had found him cowering in the corner office. “You good?” Jack asks again and Daniel shoots him a withering look and doesn’t answer.

“Daniel—“ Jack starts.

“Don’t.” His voice sounds far away.

“We’ll get her back,” Jack says instead.

“I know,” Daniel lies. 

—

The days blur and Daniel feels unbearably tired. It weighs him down and muddles his brain, but sleep won’t save Sha’re, so he makes himself useful instead. He pulls apart cultures and dissects languages like child’s play. He learns to fire guns and almost, sort of, not really, obey orders. He tries to stay focused, to stay one step ahead of his exhaustion, of his grief, of that never ending voice that whispers that she’s gone and never coming back. That she’s gone and it’s all your fault. 

He shakes the voice away and works for the military. He deciphers riddles for them and fights for them and all the while he tries to hold to his ideals. People are good, he reminds himself. The world is harsh, but you must be kind. Good things happen to good people if you just wait long enough. No one is alone forever and hope is stronger than fear. 

He clings to those ideals desperate to keep them from crumbling away. During the day he does okay, but at night? At night he lays down in a bed too cold and empty and cries. 

—

It occurs to him the day, after Apophis’ invasion that could’ve been, sitting alone in his apartment—not home, never home, Abydos was home,  _ Sha’re _ was home—that it’s become easy for him to take a life. 

Not human life. Never that, but Gua’old, Jaffa, he has helped kill them time and time again. He has blown up ships to ensure the safety of others and has sentenced monsters to their deaths to ensure his own. This is war, he realizes, and he wonders when he became a soldier in it. 

—

They are Gua’old he rationalizes over his 3am breakfast as nightmares yank him from sleep. They’re Gua’old and they’re monsters. Unfeeling. Unloving. Undeserving of kindness. They had taken everything from him time and time again and why should he not try to do the same? 

...Only...the idealist in him whispers, something of the host must survive. He thinks of Kendra and wonders how many other people sleep as prisoners in their own bodies. He wonders how many of them have cried out and not been heard. He wonders if any of the Gua’old that he’s gunned down have had people looking for them. Waiting for them. Hoping they’ll return.

He wonders if, perhaps, he’s killed someone’s long lost love. 

He wonders if maybe someone’s already killed his. The thought, unwanted, unwelcome, sends him stumbling to the bathroom to see the return of his breakfast. 

When he’s through he breathes in deeply through his nose, rises his mouth in the sink, and closes his eyes. He tries to remember Sha’re as she once was. Tries to remember the curve of her face, the slant of her eyes. He tries to remember the feel of her lips and is horrified when he can’t remember if her smile quirks to the left or to the right. A sob trembles on his lips and he brings a hand up to muffle it. 

She’s disappearing, he realizes, disappearing just like he is. 

Will...will he even recognize her when they reunite? 

He stares at himself in the mirror. Cold blue eyes in a trembling face stare back and another sob escapes.

Will she even recognize him? 

—

He shows up at the mountain with bags under his eyes and slouch to his shoulders.

“Long night?” Sam asks and he nods.

She smiles like she understands what’s wrong and offers him coffee. 

He accepts, takes it, and retreats to his studies. 

He goes on missions, watches as more and more Gua’old and Jaffa and innocents die and prays to whatever gods may be out there that Sha’re won’t one day be one of them.

—

He thinks he’s falling apart and that maybe he should tell someone, but he can’t find the energy to do so. 

Incidences blur together and compile into something that he’s pretty sure is trauma, but he can’t be bothered to care. 

P3R-636 changes that. The  _ sarcophagus  _ changes that. 

Now it’s not just that he can’t be bothered to care, he  _ doesn’t  _ care. The worry, the despair, the anger, falls away and he wonders why he’s never thought of this before. Of course,  _ of course,  _ the sarcophagus could heal emotional woes as well as physical, how else could the Gua’old carry on as they do? 

It’s perfect. He’s perfect. Shyla is perfect. And he thinks perhaps he should tell her that he’s flattered, but he’s already married, but the sarcophagus takes care of that too. The despair over Sha’re is nothing compared to what he has now. 

He feels whole. He feels  _ happy.  _ And for once when he sleeps he sleeps knowing that he’ll be okay. 

—

Naturally, it doesn’t last. 

—

He tries to shoot Jack and Daniel thinks that he’s finally crossed a line. That he’s finally lost the last bit of what made him the man Sha’re loved and it destroys him. It takes what little bit of hope he had and shatters it. 

Then, when the grief returns, it returns with barbed claws that sink into him and refuse to let go. It envelops him and he thinks that maybe this is what drowning feels like. He laughs humorously at the thought. No, he  _ knows  _ this is what drowning feels like, because he remembers it from Oannes. Remembers the water in his lungs and the mind probe in his brain and maybe he left a part of himself there and that’s why he feels alienated from his own body. 

Still he’s become accustomed to the feeling and so what if it’s worse? So what if he thinks he’s drowning on dry land? He’ll cope, he’ll manage, because Sha’re needs him and he has to be okay for her. But for now...for now he’s content to sob in Jack’s arms and try not to loose more of himself inside the small closet.

—

They ask him questions about his encounter. The run test. They make sure he’s not about to go shooting more people, or rather go shooting the wrong people, and he somehow manages to smile and pass all of Doctor Fraiser’s exams. 

They say he’s himself again and he flees the compound feeling like a liar. 

—

He doesn’t remember getting home. 

He doesn’t remember turning on the TV. 

He doesn’t remember collapsing on the couch.

And yet here he is watching as the TV shuffles through late night ads. He thinks that they’re probably saying something, but he can’t understand it. He misses the ancient tongue of Abydos, misses hearing Sha’re laugh at his accent, misses the way she reassures him that she loves him anyways. This language, whatever it is, sounds staticky and foreign in his ears. 

A knock at the door. He thinks he should answer it. He doesn’t. 

Instead he closes his eyes and tries to remember what Sha’re sounds like. Had her voice been low or high? Soft or rough? His chest constricts painfully when the memory doesn’t form. Perhaps the sarcophagus had taken that with his sanity? 

How many more pats of himself is he going to lose due to his pride? 

Another knock, louder this time, and Daniel thinks he hears yelling, but he can’t make out what it is. He pulls the blanket he doesn’t remember retrieving over his head and tries to block it out. 

A crash and Daniel pulls the blanket down startled. He thinks that maybe he should do something about the potential robber in his house. Thinks that maybe he should at least call 911. Thinks that if he dies in a home break in that at least he won’t become a host. Thinks all of this and doesn’t move.

Instead he blinks for just a moment and when his eyes reopen Jack is kneeling in front of him. Daniel frowns, had he taken care of the robber? 

Jack’s mouth moves and Daniel understands over a dozen different languages, but whatever Jack is saying isn’t one of them. 

“Go away,” Daniel says in German and Jack frowns. His mouth moves again and Daniel pulls the blanket back over his head. 

Jack snatches it and pulls it back down. 

“No, Daniel,” he says and Daniel catches it this time. “You have to tell me what’s wrong.”

There’s so many things he could say to that. Things like, I think I'm losing myself, or does killing make me a bad person, or I can’t fall asleep for more than a few hours at a time because I still haven’t gotten used to sleeping alone, but none of that seems like enough. None of that seems to even begin to give form to his grief. 

“ _ Daniel, _ ” and that tone forces him to answer. 

“She’s gone,” he decides to go with the root of it all and then for the second time that week he sobs in Jack’s arms and doesn’t care. 

—

They take a break and they all pretend like Daniel isn’t the reason. All pretend like words like recovery time and stress relief and short vacation don’t apply to him and only him. 

He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about a lot of things nowadays. 

—

They make him stay in Jack’s house and Daniel wonders if the world’s always been so empty or if it’s just him. He sits on Jack’s couch now instead of his own and watches TV until he’s so tired not even his thoughts can keep him up. He sleeps and wakes up feeling empty. He ghosts through the house and wonders why the things he found interesting no longer engage him. He tries, he really does. He opens his journals and he reads through his notes, but the lines blur and his brain won’t focus. He feels muddled and confused. He’s tired of it, but he also can’t bring himself to care. 

On the third day Jack intervenes by dropping a sandwich in his lap. 

“Eat.” It isn’t a suggestion.

“Not hungry.” 

“I didn’t ask that,” Jack scowls, plopping himself down next to him. “I said eat.” 

Daniel doesn’t reply. 

Jack sighs, runs a hand over his face, “I know it sounds silly, but you won’t feel hungry until you start to eat. Just try taking a bite woulda? A bite won’t hurt anyone.” 

Daniel takes a bite. His stomach growls and he frowns. “Oh.” 

“Just nibble on it, one bite at a time,” Jack tells him. “And hand me the remote you’ve been hogging my TV.” 

Daniel hands the remote over and Jack flips it to hockey. Jack mutters at the TV. Daniel takes another bite of his sandwich. 

Then he asks, because the question has been burning on his tongue for days. 

“Did it hurt when Charlie died?” 

Jack freezes, his whole body tense. He gulps. Coughs. “Yeah,” he croaks. “Yeah it did.” 

Daniel nods, he looks down at his sandwich. He takes another bite. It’s not as hard this time. 

“Sha’re isn’t dead Daniel.” 

His head shoots up. Jack’s staring at him, eyes searching his. He must find what he’s looking for, because he repeats. 

“Sha’re isn’t dead.” 

“I know that.” He whispers. 

“Do you?” 

_ No _ , he thinks, but that feels like a betrayal. That feels like he’s breaking so many promises with just one word, so he gulps and replies, “Yes.”

Jack doesn’t say anything, but his eyes keep staring into Daniel’s like he knows Daniel’s lying. 

“She’s out there,” Jack reiterates. “She’s alive and we’ll find her.” 

A humorously laugh escapes from Daniel’s mouth before he can stop it and that terrible grief starts to push past the emptiness. 

“How do you know that Jack? What proof do we have? And even if she is still alive where do we go from there? Thor’s hammer is gone, we’ve got no other cure, and we have no idea where to even start looking for one. And,” he breathes deep, “And even if we manage to free her what...what if she doesn’t love me anymore? I’m...I’m not the man she married Jack.” 

“Daniel it’s okay for people to change. She’ll love you anyway.” 

He shakes his head in denial. Jack doesn’t get it. Doesn’t understand. He thinks Daniel’s changed a little; he doesn’t realize that Daniel’s changed too much. Losing bits of himself little by little until there’s nothing left. 

“ _ Daniel. _ ”

“I’ve killed people Jack, I’ve never done that before, not over and over again,” he looks down at his hands and asks bitterly, “How can Sha’re still love me after that?” 

Jack sucks in a breath of air. 

He continues talking before Jack can, “And I know what you’re going to say, that it’s all for the greater good, or that they had it coming, that they were monsters, but then Jack so is Sha’re.” 

“Daniel—“ Jack tries, but now that the words are coming they won’t stop. They tumble out and he can’t breathe. 

“And I can’t help, but think that someone is going to look at her and see just the monster and nothing else. Jack, Sha’re isn’t a monster. She’s a victim, but other people don’t know that. They don’t understand what’s going on. They just see a monster and what if someone’s already killed her for it? What if when I find her she’s already gone?” 

“Daniel—“

“And I’ve killed people just like her and what if they have people waiting for them? What if she’s seen me do it? What if she doesn’t even recognize me anymore? Jack,  _ I  _ don’t even recognize me anymore. Do you know what it’s like to look in the mirror and have someone else look back? And the worse part is it’s all my fault? If I had just stayed on Abydos or if I had never gone there in the first place she would be safe. I wish I had never—“

“Daniel stop it!” 

Strong hands on his arms and he tenses, Jack’s hands loosen.

“Just...just stop it.” 

He falls quiet. The sandwich is on the ground. He doesn’t remember dropping it. It’s staining the carpet. Suddenly that feels like a big deal. 

“Sorry about the sandwich,” he mutters. “I’ll clean it up.” 

“The sand—Daniel I don’t care about the sandwich.” 

“Oh.” 

Jack sighs, closes his eyes. He still hasn’t let go of Daniel’s arms. 

“When,” he begins slowly with a gulp, “when Charlie died I didn’t cope well.” 

Daniel tilts his head. He knows this. Had seen the aftermath. He opens his mouth to say so, but Jack opens his eyes and something in them makes him stop. 

“But you know what happened? I met this bright eyed, dumb, scrawny kid, who managed to convince me that there was still a world worth living for.” His eyes bear into Daniel’s, “And you know what? I still see that kid every single day. He may be a bit different, a bit rougher around the edges, but he’s still there. You hear me Daniel? You’re still you.” 

He wants to deny it. To throw out accusations and evidence until Jack can see as clearly as he can all the ways that Daniel has failed. Failed those he loves and failed himself. But when he opens his mouth Jack’s hands squeeze his arms and Daniel is reminded that this is Jack. Jack who has never been afraid to point out his flaws before. And he thinks that maybe, just maybe, what he’s saying is true. He wants to ask about that, but when he opens his mouth a sob hiccups out in its place. And then another. And then another. 

For the third time he cries in Jack’s arms and wonders when this started to become a habit. 

—-

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but when he wakes up there’s a blanket over his shoulders and a pillow under his head. He’s still on the couch. The TV is still playing. The sandwich is gone. 

“Morning,” Jack says, he jumps. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” he mumbles, sitting up. “My glasses?” 

Jack hands them to him, he puts them on. Jack hands him a piece of toast, “Eat.” 

He isn’t hungry, he nibbles on it anyway.

Jack sits down next to him. 

“Daniel, you should talk to someone.”

“I talked to you.” 

“No you didn’t, not really.” 

He has things he wants to say to that, but Jack moves forward before he can. 

“I think it’ll be good for you.” Daniel looks up at him and Jack looks determined. But there’s something else there. Something dark and haunted and Daniel looks away.

Daniel opens his mouth, to argue that he doesn’t think Jack’s ever talked to anyone ever, but Jack steals his words away. 

“I...I think I should’ve talked to someone after Charlie.”

Daniel’s mouth snaps closed. He can’t argue against that, not in any way he was planning to, not when he can turn and see Jack’s eyes sharp and painful and bearing into his soul. So he tries another approach. 

“And who am I supposed to talk to about the alien creature that took over my alien wife, that I met on an alien planet? Come on Jack.” 

For a moment he thinks that he’s got him cornered, but this is Jack. Jack who likes plans and preparation and winning unwinnable challenges. This challenge is no exception. 

“There’s people on the base. We don’t just send people into dangerous situations and then expect them to cope on your own.” 

“That’s for soldiers, I’m not military,” Daniel counters.  _ Liar,  _ his heart cries.

“You’re right, you’re not, but you are entitled to the same help that any of them are and I think it’ll help.” 

Daniel looks down. He can see his feet covered slightly by his pants. He’s been wearing these same pants for three days. He doesn’t care. He thinks maybe that’s a bad thing.

He gulps, “You really think so?” 

“Yes.” 

Daniel mulls it over. Thinks of how his heart hurts, but doesn’t. Thinks of how his soul screams as it falls further and further into nothing. Thinks of Sha’re and how she’d respond to him now. Thinks all this and slowly nods his head in acceptance.

—

He meets with a doctor. It goes well. It goes fine. They make him talk and so he talks. 

He talks about the Stargate and about Abydos and about P3R-636.

He talks about the Goa’uld and the Jaffa and Hathor.

And once the emptiness inside him has begun to subside he talks of Sha’re. 

He talks about the curve of her face and the slant of her eyes. 

He talks about how she mispronounces his name and how her smile quirks to the left when she’s amused. 

He talks about how much he loves her and how much she loves him back.

He talks and talks and every word is weighted. It’s heavy and thick and he wonders if maybe this is why he feels lighter and lighter each time he leaves it in the air. 

—

When they finally head out on a new mission two weeks later he’s surprised to find that he feels better. That he feels, maybe not quite whole, but more like himself than he has in ages. 

He meets his team in the Gate Room. Sam smiles at him and Teal’c does a vague approximation. To his surprise he manages to smile back and mean it. 

And as the chevrons begin to lock into place Daniel finds his smile widening. A new world is just moments away and his feelings of excitement over that are almost foreign. When was the last time he was this eager to discover something new? To interact with something new? He can’t remember. 

“You look happy,” Daniel turns to see Jack smiling at him. 

“I  _ feel  _ happy,” Daniel replies and is surprised to find that he means it. He thinks that maybe that numb feeling will return, that there will be bad days, but right now in this moment he forces that thought away and relishes in the ability to simply  _ feel.  _

“That’s...that’s good,” Jack says haltingly. “I’m happy for you.” 

Daniel hums, looks towards the Stargate and wonders if Sha’re could be waiting on the other side. He wonders what she would think of him. Of the changes that he’s made and the things he’s done. 

“I think Sha’re would be happy too,” he decides and he can see Jack stiffen out of the side of his eye. “She...she would’ve liked to see Earth I think. Maybe not for her culture, but I think she’d like to see another part of what made me into the man she loves.” 

“We’ll find her,” Jack tells him. 

Daniel nods. He thinks of Sha’re and the way her hair floats in the wind. The way she holds his hand and chuckles at his blush. The way she still doesn’t quite grasp the concept of his glasses. He thinks of all of this and the pain is there, but mostly there is love and fondness and hope. 

The ninth chevron finally snaps into place and Daniel starts forward as the wormhole activates. 

“Daniel?” He turns, Jack is looking at him funny.

“I know we will,” he says and this time, as he steps through the Stargate, he believes it. 

**Author's Note:**

> Me every time I watch Stargate: ....so are we going to deal with the long term ramifications of Daniel loosing his wife or....? Nope guess not, guess it’s up to me! 
> 
> Anywho! Thanks for reading, if you liked this story please consider leaving a comment below!


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